From the archive: This episode was originally recorded and published in 2021. Our interviews on Entrepreneurs On Fire are meant to be evergreen, and we do our best to confirm that all offers and URL’s in these archive episodes are still relevant.
Robin is a Husband, Daddy, Cyclist and Surfer. During his spare time he helps coaches, consultants and freelancers to be fearless and confidently charge more!
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3 Value Bombs
1) You do not always have to follow the crowd. Most of the time, it is better to go the other way around.
2) You can charge as much as you want, as long as you are confident that your skills will guarantee your clients’ best results.
3) Be fearless about your pricing. If you face challenges in understanding your worth, then speak to a coach about how you can find creative ways to charge more for products.
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HubSpot: With the HubSpot for Startups program, you can save 30-90% on a platform that scales right along with you! To see if you’re eligible to join the HubSpot for Startups program and take your growth to the next level, visit HubSpot.com/startups!
Field of Greens: Just one scoop a day and you’ll be getting in loads of fruits, veggies, herbs and spices all at once! Visit FieldOfGreens.com and use promo code FIRE for 15% off your first order AND free rush shipping!
Show Notes
**Click the time stamp to jump directly to that point in the episode.
[1:16] – Robin shares something that he believes about becoming successful that most people disagree with.
- Most people start their business by following the successes of their competitions.
- Robin does the opposite. He believes that you do not always have to follow the crowd. Most of the time, it is better to go the other way around.
[2:39] – Why is charging what everyone else charges a bad idea?
- Charging the same as what everybody else does is one of the biggest mistakes.
- The mistake here is assuming that what the other business is doing is right – or maybe the wrong – thing.
- Robin recommends looking at the goal that you’ve set for your business.
- You may price in the lowest.
- You may price in mid-range.
- You may price expensive.
[5:39] – Robin gives examples of why charging by the hour is fundamentally unethical.
- Robin needs a website and seeks a developer:
- Developer 1: Steve charges $50 per hour for a 20-hour website project. You got your website after three months, and you want revisions. Steve asks for another $50 per hour for an additional 10 hours.
- Developer 2: Sharon is a brilliant website developer. She is not aware of how much Steve charges. Sharon offers to build a website, but it may take three weeks… but guarantees 3-5 leads per month. Sharon finished the project in just half time and got $500 for her work.
- Developer 3: Roger knows his worth and can build a website in just three days. He guarantees the website will get 10-15 surefire leads each month by the end of the next 90 days. If unsuccessful, Roger offers to give a refund and will also provide $1,000 for wasting his client’s time. He charges $10,000.
- You can charge as high as you want as long as you are confident that your skills will guarantee your clients’ best results.
- Referrals will follow. Be the best solution to their problems, and they will beat a path to your doorstep.
[10:39] – Productizing services over hourly rates.
- Hourly rates are a thing of the past.
- Start to focus on having a fixed fee, and you can incrementally change your prices depending on your level of confidence and the number of leads coming.
- You can work your way up after you productize your service.
[13:54] – A timeout to thank our sponsors!
- HubSpot: With the HubSpot for Startups program, you can save 30-90% on a platform that scales right along with you! To see if you’re eligible to join the HubSpot for Startups program and take your growth to the next level, visit HubSpot.com/startups!
- Field of Greens: Just one scoop a day and you’ll be getting in loads of fruits, veggies, herbs and spices all at once! Visit FieldOfGreens.com and use promo code FIRE for 15% off your first order AND free rush shipping!
[16:42] – How do you go about increasing your prices?
- Gradually increase your pricing for your product or service, and once you reach a gut reaction on a specific range, that will be your increased price point.
- Start to pitch once you’re outside your comfort zone.
- It is a safe space to confidently go out in the market and start pitching at that increased price point.
[19:26] – Why it’s important not to discount?
- You offer discounts to introduce an increase in demand for your product or service.
- If you offer a 5% discount, you have to sell 14% more of the same product or service to profit.
- Discounting can be incredibly damaging to your business without you realizing it.
[22:15] – Robin shares some insights on money mindset and your internal value systems
- People are born with several different blueprints. A financial blueprint is instilled in us, and as you mature, you rely on this blueprint to rule how you handle money within your businesses.
- Cashflow problems: Making more money and then keeping it.
- Often, people sell cheap products because they love the feeling of having a sale repeatedly, but they don’t realize the damage it is doing to their business.
- Businesses that have the most success have developed the patience to wait for the right prospect to come along at the right price and make them profit.
- “Slow down, create space, and charge what you’re worth.”
[27:56] – Robin’s parting piece of guidance.
- Be fearless about your pricing. If you face challenges in understanding your worth, speak to a coach about how you can find creative ways to charge more for products.
- Fearless Business – Accelerate And Grow Your Coaching Business Online!
- Take Your Shot – Apply for a FREE copy of the bestselling business book, Take Your Shot – How to Grow Your Business, Attract More Clients and Make More Money!
[29:04]– Thank you to our Sponsor!
- HubSpot: With the HubSpot for Startups program, you can save 30-90% on a platform that scales right along with you! To see if you’re eligible to join the HubSpot for Startups program and take your growth to the next level, visit HubSpot.com/startups!
Transcript
0 (2s):
Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here, and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like my first million stories about companies that grew from nothing into legit businesses today, we'll be focusing on how to stop underselling yourself, to drop these value bombs. I am bringing Robin Waite on the mic. He has a husband, daddy, cyclist, and surfer. During his spare time, he helps coaches, consultants and freelancers to be fearless and confidently charge more. And today for our nation. We'll talk about how to price yourself correctly. Why charging by the hour is fundamentally unethical.
0 (42s):
We'll talk about discounting and money mindset and how to increase our prices. And so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, the HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. Whether you're looking for marketing sales, service, or operational guidance, the HubSpot Podcast Network hosts have your back, listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at HubSpot.com/podcastnetwork. Looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase your profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than it would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee.
0 (1m 22s):
Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former small business administration entrepreneur of the year at ThriveTimeShow.com/fire ThriveTimeShow.com/fire. Robin say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree
1 (1m 45s):
Or what sorts of the phonation. Yeah. So my, my tit to kick things off with is around going against the flow. So a lot of the time when people start up in business, for example, that they're told to go and look at the competition and follow and do exactly what they do, because that's where every, where West success lies. And for me, I've always pretty much done the opposite of what everybody else does and created enormous success as a result of it. So don't always follow the crowd. You can always go in the opposite direction from time to time.
0 (2m 17s):
I like that Mark Twain quotes, which is when you find yourself on the side of the majority, stop and reflect, because there could be a reason that you are, and it might not be a very good reason. So far in Asia, as I shared about at the beginning of this episode, we're going to talk today about stopping underselling yourself. And it's time to just simply stop underselling yourself. Because if you're hearing my voice, you are likely underselling yourself and let's just get right into a Robyn because pricing is just a major issue for so many people. I mean, it's probably one of the top questions I get when I'm speaking of podcasters or just entrepreneurs in general about their course, their podcast or sponsorship or whatever it might be.
0 (3m 1s):
Why do people end up just pricing their stuff to their competitor? And why is that a bad idea?
1 (3m 8s):
It's a bad idea so much. And if you're as a local service provider, I don't know, let's say for example, you, you build websites for a living. There's probably like 20 different web designers in your local area. And it Steve's looking at what Dave's charging. Dave's looking at what John's charging. John's looking back at what Sharon's charging and Sharon's looking back at Dave. And the reality is none of those people are actually pricing experts. They're all kind of looking at each other kind of thinking while the other person must know what they're doing. So charging charging the same as what everybody else is charging is often one of the biggest mistakes and the right way to do it is to, and I'm not suggesting don't go and look at your competitors because there is some gold, which you can pull out of there. But the mistake is assuming that what they're doing is, is right when actually it might be the wrong thing to do.
1 (3m 54s):
So we, we recommend that the first thing that you should do is actually look at the goals you set for your business and identify economically how many products is it? You know, do you need to sell in order to achieve your ideal turnover within your business? And then use that as a marker for how much you're charging as a starting point. And, and, and also the other thing to remember as well is that, you know, out of those, those 20 service providers that are out there in terms of your competition, you you've only ever got three choices. When you price your products, you could, you could go in at the cheapest because that's how you think you get clients. You could go middle of the road because you don't want to be perceived as the cheapest, but also you think that if you're too expensive, that will, that will repel people away from you.
1 (4m 37s):
So you, you, you kind of go middle of the road to be safe, but there's always one person out there in your industry who is the most expensive. And there's a few clues here. So they're the most expensive, but they've probably been around for the longest. They've got the most Google reviews, but somehow whilst they're being the most expensive, they're still able to get clients. So it's, it's not even really profound. It's just, it's like really obvious that you can be the most expensive and still run an incredibly successful business and pick up clients.
0 (5m 7s):
There's a lot of things that's Robin just went through. I hope you're really going to chew on because you know, it's, it's a tough gamut. We're not going to say that this is easy. If it was easy to price, everything that everybody would be doing a perfectly in this world, we, you know, would be an interesting place unless they can be better or worse, or just be more interesting. And there's a quote that I think really resonates here, which is a Seth Godin quote, which is the problem with the race to the bottom is that you just might win. I mean, think about that. Like, if you're just like, I'm just going to go lower, lower, lower, I'm going to be the lowest. Well, the problem with the race of the bottom is you just might win. And is that really a race that he wants to be winning? Now, I'm going to be really expounding upon all the things that Robin's going to be talking about as we continue going through this process of stop underselling yourself.
0 (5m 54s):
But I want to start with a very strong word unethical in you use it very strongly. Robin charging by the hour is fundamentally unethical. Expand upon that.
1 (6m 8s):
And this, this is one of the more controversial things which I say, and I have fun people divided over this and sort of banging on my door. So yeah, I, I strongly believe that charging by the hour is fundamentally unethical because let, let me give you an example of a John. You gonna have to be my stooge for this. You're gonna have to bear with me. So I'm going to stick with the, the website analogy, but, and by the way, I used to run a website design business years ago. So hence the reason why I come back to that, but you're in the market for website. So Steve comes along, he's going to sell you this website. It's gonna take him about 20 hours and he's going to charge you 50 bucks now, is that cool? Cool. So he goes, what he forgot to tell you was that he's not terribly good. He hasn't been doing it for very long.
1 (6m 48s):
His websites don't look great. He's going to go away for three months because he's so busy because he sold too many cheap websites. So he's so busy, eventually comes back and he says, John, here's your website. And you go, that's what's, what's the blog. What's the shopping cart. It doesn't look very nice. It's not what results is that going to get me? So, so, so he then says, well, Oh, the blog. Yeah. That'll, that'll be another 10 hours, 50 bucks now. And you've got to pay for it. Is that okay? No. Now most of us that are ethical, moral, upstanding human beings, and we wouldn't just bump up the price, but now you're annoyed. John's, Steve's annoyed and everybody's a bit, there's a lot of resentment kind of building up here. Okay. Now on the flip side of that, we've then got Sharon, right? So Sharon, she's an absolutely kick-ass developer.
1 (7m 30s):
She is brilliant. Right. But she doesn't know what Robin knows about pricing. Okay. So Sharon says, listen, I'm going to build your website, take me about three weeks, but I can pretty much guarantee it's going to get you three to five leads a month, you know, add in tonight's. I'm pretty confident my abilities to deliver. It's going to get found on Google and things like that. So Sharon goes away and she, she built it in half the time as Steve. And so yet she built a better website, but she's only going to get paid $500 for that. So that's the second shift. It doesn't really add up that she's better yet. She gets paid less than the guy who's not very experienced. Now the third person comes along. Okay. So we've got, we've got Roger, right?
1 (8m 13s):
Roger knows his worth. Okay. Roger comes along and he says, John, right, I'm gonna build your website in three days flat. Okay. I can guarantee that in the next 90 days, or by the end of the next 90 days, it will be delivering 10 to 15 guaranteed leads for you each and every month. And I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you my prices in a second. What I'll do is if we get to 90 days and it's not delivering those leads, I've just said, Hey, I'll give you a refund, but I'll also pay you a thousand dollars for wasting your time. Is that cool?
0 (8m 42s):
No brainer. Absolutely.
1 (8m 44s):
It's $10,000. Is that all right?
0 (8m 46s):
Give me those leads. I'll do it a hundred percent.
1 (8m 48s):
So you can see that, like now we've, we've done the flipper. Ooh, it's it's Roger. Roger gets great results and, and they're guaranteed and he's willing to put his money where his mouth is. And so we, you know, whilst he's, you know, 10 times the price of the other two, you just, you just get much better results off the backend of it.
0 (2s):
Fire Nation. I hope you're really absorbing this and maybe thinking about, Hey, how are some ways that I can apply this to my business?
0 (9m 10s):
How are some ways that I can guarantee results? Or if they don't get those results, the money goes back. But I know because of my skill set, because of my expertise, I'm going to produce, I'm going to give those results. And then guess what happens that next level of thing happens, which is referrals. People become your evangelists. You know, they start saying, you just have to use this person. Like, yeah, of course they're a little pricey, but I mean, think of what you get, long-term you get the best, like that's what you want. And you know, this has comes to one of the biggest concepts that I must such a believer in, which is people will beat a path to the doorstep of the best solution for their problem.
0 (9m 50s):
If you can identify a real problem, this world and become the best solution to it, you will have people beating a path to your doorstep. If you're the second best, they will ignore you because people want the best, they want the best solution. So how can you do that? And then wrap it up in this thing that Robin is talking about here. So Robin, anything you want to end on this area before we move on,
1 (10m 10s):
I work a lot with coaches, consultants, and freelancers and people like that. And unfortunately, you know, what they make up for in certifications. Unfortunately, they, they lack in basic business skills. So I see a lot of coaches, for example, come out if they do their international coaching Federation certification or whoever they trained with. And they're kind of like shoved out the door with a message, which is, Hey, go and charge 50 bucks an hour and get your first three clients. And actually it's, it's, it sets a really bad tone of like struggle for them, unfortunately like when they first start out. So I guess my message for, for anybody listening to this, if, if kind of that's you, there is a better way to start to think about how you charge for your time and really got to get solidly focused on the results and outcomes you deliver.
0 (10m 55s):
Another way of putting it is productizing your services over hourly rates. So focusing on having a product, productizing your service over just the hourly rates. So expand upon that.
1 (11m 8s):
Yeah. A hundred percent so that the productizing of a service happens in a couple of steps. So the first thing is, so take, take a therapist, for example, and, and working with therapists is quite hard work because there's, there's an ethical side to this where according to the code of conduct, but not allowed to offer guarantee results for obvious reasons, you're working with the mind, the body and things like that, w which are, you know, unpredictable at the best of times. So, so I'm going to, I'm going to work with therapists because they're a hard example to work with was probably isn't the wisest thing to do. I don't know, but some, so the first step though, is imagine if you had a therapist, you said to them, listen on and they're working with something, I don't know, like stopping smoking or I don't know, something, some kind of transformation, basically.
1 (11m 53s):
I always the question on average, an average as a keyword on average, how long does it take for you to get the desired outcome or result with your clients? And quite often you'll get something which is like, well, you know, 12 weeks. Okay. And so then you say, okay, well, how many hours are you actually, well, how much do you charge per hour currently? And they might say something like 50 bucks now. Okay. So the first part of productizing a service is actually to kind of package up those 12 weeks, that average number of sessions, and then multiply it by the hourly rate and get used to selling that first. So now all of a sudden, now we do a 12 week transformational program, which is $600 for example. And I always tell them that then we move into step two, which is to right now, you've got to get used to selling packages, to go out and pitch the next 10 people or $600 transformational process.
1 (12m 41s):
And then invariably, they come back to me, I've taken hundreds of clients through this. Invariably, they come back to me and they say, well, actually, we've, we've sold three out of the 10 at the 600 pounds. And you know what, Robin I've already put my prices up. So this is the point where now hourly rates are a thing of the past. They focused on this transformational progress, which is happening over a predetermined period of time. The outcome is predictable because that's a step-by-step process and it's for a fixed fee. And the beautiful thing is when you've not now that you've got that fixed fee, you can start to experiment with that. So if you pitch 10 people at 600 bucks, we'll go and pitch the next 10 people at 800 bucks or 900 or 1200 bucks, depending on your, your level of confidence, neuro you know, and, and the number of leads and inquiries, which are coming into you at that point.
1 (13m 29s):
And invariably, the conversion rate actually doesn't change that much. They go and pitch the next 10 people and they get two, three or four people signed up. So we put the price up again. And we just, it's, it's a really neat way of just incrementally increasing the prices. You know, you don't just go out there and charge five times the amount or bit some clients have done, but you kind of gradually just work your way up after you productize that service
0 (2s):
Fire Nation. This is a whole new and different way of thinking about these types of things.
0 (13m 55s):
And again, I just really hope you're saying, Hey, how can I apply this type of thought, this type of process, this type of system to my business. And if you think Robin's even close to being done at dropping value bombs, you got another thing coming, because we're gonna be talking about increasing prices. Discounting. We'll talk about some insights in the money mindset as well. As soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase their profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than would cost to hire a full-time at minimum wage employee, I, our nation meets Clay. Clark clay has been coaching businesses just like yours since 2006.
0 (14m 35s):
Yup. Even through the great recession. And he does it for less money than would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee at a time when Inc magazine reports that by default 96% of businesses will fail. Within 10 years, clay is helping businesses like yours to grow on average by 104% annually. How's this even possible clay only takes on 160 clients. So he personally designed your business plan. Plus CLIs team helps you execute that plan with access to graphic designers, Google certified search engine, optimizers, web developers, online ad managers, videographers workflow, mappers and accounting coaches visit ThriveTimeShow.com/fire, to see thousands of video testimonials from real people, just like you, who clay has helped over the years. That's right. Do your research and view thousands, not hundreds of proven documented in archived video testimonials from real people, just like you at ThriveTimeShow.com/fire, ThriveTimeShow.com/fire.
0 (15m 26s):
Then schedule your free consultation with Clay himself to see how he and his team can help you thrive the CRM you choose to help you run, grow and scale. Your business is important. And what's even more important is that you get your team on board with using it with HubSpot CRM platform. You can trust that adoption will be easy. This means less time training your team, more efficiency, better data, richer insights, and all of this results in a bigger impact on the customer experience. So how does HubSpot do it? For starters, they provide what's called a contact timeline, which gives you the historical context. You need to get work done fast and connect with your prospects and customers in a meaningful way. And if you're on the go, then you can use HubSpot's mobile app to move work forward.
0 (16m 9s):
Anytime, anywhere, outreach team collaboration, access to previous messages and the ability to take notes and add attachments. As soon as you get off a call, it's all there waiting for you. You can even send updates and messages using HubSpot keyboard across multiple apps like WhatsApp, Slack, Gmail, and more, learn more about how you can scale your company without scaling complexity at HubSpot.com. So Robin we're back and let's be honest. We all do want to charge more, but let's get specific about how we can increase our prices, increase our rates.
1 (16m 44s):
So again, you're going to have to be my stooge for this John. So we're going to have to try. And maybe if you don't have an example, maybe work with work on a client or just make something up a case. So let's say for example, we've gone through the product realization process on one of your products. So give me an example of a product. And then we'll we'll work
0 (17m 5s):
Was used one of my old products webinar on fire, where we would teach people how to create and convert webinars.
1 (17m 11s):
Okay. So, and how much does it, does it cost to, to sign up to that $500? Okay. So $500. So you and I both agree that that John that's way too cheap. Okay. Cheap way too cheap. Right? So we both agree. I've sown the seed of an idea, John, that you need to increase the price of that program, right? Yes. Okay. Now, if I went straight out there and said, right, John, go out and charge 5k for it. What would your immediate thought be? No, one's going to buy it. Nobody's going to buy it. Okay. So I can guarantee that some people would John, because you're John Lee Dumas. However, let's pretend in this world, that 5k is just too outrageous. That's a 10 X price point. Okay. But what we do is we're going to rewind a little bit and we're to going to start at that 500 pound, a dollar price point, and I'm going to do a little Dutch auction with you.
1 (17m 55s):
Okay. I'm going to gradually increment that price. And when you get that knee jerk reaction, that gut reaction, and it's a bit like, Ooh, that's the point where we're going to stop and have a little chat. Okay. So bear with me. So they would start at $500. So $600, $700, $800, $1,200, $1,500, $1,800 go. You're pretty brave. $2,500. Okay. Right. John, go out and pitch the next 10 people at $2,500. Cause that's, you're just outside your comfort zone because that's a safe enough space for you to confidently get out there and start pitching at that increased price point,
0 (2s):
Fire Nation. You know what all the magic happens outside of your comfort zone, not inside your comfort zone, outside of your comfort zone.
0 (18m 40s):
And what do you have to lose? Like give this a test, give this a try. I mean, if it actually works for me, that means I'm making five X on every single sale. And so what if I only sell like, you know, like 10 or 12, like less per month overall, I'm making way more money because I have five X my prices and gone to a place that's Hey, I'm actually being able to test this market out and see what people are willing to pay. And, you know, if I come up with goose eggs for the next couple months, I mean, that might be telling me something and I drop it back down, but I'm not, I'm probably not going back down to 500 because now that seems way, way too low. Because you know, now that I've been outside of my comfort zone, I kind of like how it feels out here.
0 (19m 21s):
And another thing that you hate Robin is discounting. Why,
1 (19m 28s):
If you go out into the marketplace and your prices are too cheap, you're accidentally discounting without even really realizing it in the first place. So that's the first thing to bear in mind with this. But what most people don't realize is that they think if they just offer, say for example, a 5% discount on the same product or service. So we offer discounts in order to introduce or artificially increased demand for our product to service. That's why most business owners offer discounts. Okay. But if we discount by 5%, most people assume that you've just got to sell 5% more in order to make the same profit in your business, but actually the numbers of stocks. So over here in the UK, we've got a, an organization called the chartered Institute of management accountants, terribly exciting.
1 (20m 12s):
And they did a study and they looked at all of the, a lot of the, you know, all of the businesses throughout the UK on average and worked out what the average gross profit margin was in those businesses. And, and they worked out that by the time, you know, if you offer a discount by the time the, the money falls down through the profit and loss account, I in expenses and overheads, there's like a compounding effect, which happens. So if you offer just a 5% discount, you've actually got to sell 14% more of the same thing in order to make the same profit. And you can then keep on sort of ratcheting that up. So a 10% discount means you've actually got to sell 2% more of the same thing in order to make the same profit. And then by the time you get to about a 30 or 40% discount, you've actually got to sell more than double at the same thing in order to make the same net profit.
1 (20m 59s):
So discounting can be incredibly damaging for a business without people really realizing it. It's the same reason as well. Why on the flip side, if you increase your prices. So if you increase your prices by say 5%, well actually you can afford to have 14% fewer clients and still make the same amount of profit and the numbers keep on going up that way as well. Like the perfect business for me actually, when you've got, we live in this world where we've got the internet, you know, knocking on our door and in our pockets all the time with global marketplace, you know, at your fingertips and everybody's out there like marketing like crazy. Well actually I believe that a good business is one way. You've got half the clients and you're making double the price
0 (2s):
Fire Nation. I mean, think about these numbers.
0 (21m 39s):
Like this is really eye-popping like, I never would've thought that a 5% discount could equate to a 14% and less rev. I mean, the numbers just keep compounding and be getting exponential. And I think a lot of this Robin, it has to come back down to, you know, people in their struggles when it comes to money mindset. And I think that you probably deal with a lot of money mindsets, what, which is why, you know, some people struggle having their rates at reasonable places or increasing their rates too, you know, that kind of uncomfortable zone because there's just some real money mindset issues out there. So can you give us some insights into money mindset
1 (22m 17s):
With several different blueprints and I'm going to carry out this cause I'm not a, I'm not a psychologist necessarily, but I'm an avid enthusiast. And I read a lot about sort of psychology and various things like that. And especially around mindset when it comes to entrepreneurs and business owners. And one of, one of the really stark ones is that our financial blueprint on money blueprint is actually instilled in us by the time we're sort of around about three to seven years old. And I I've got two daughters, I've got a seven and a four year old daughter. And like, I don't know about you, John. But like when I was three, I could bet my girls, I could barely count at three years old, let alone add up. And also like there was no real concept of a fair value exchange.
1 (22m 59s):
You know, all I seem to get with my girls is daddy, can I have this daddy? Can I have that? You know? So yeah, when we then become, you know, turned into grownups and w we, we then rely on this blueprint to, to rule how we handle money within our businesses. So like some of the common things which I hear is I've got a cashflow problem, right? And most business owners don't ever really have a cashflow problem because cash flows into the business and it flows straight back out. The other end of the business, the problem they've actually got is making more money and then keeping it and that, so that's one of the first things. And the reason why our money blueprint is installed in such a young age, it's like, you know, 99% of us, aren't born with a silver spoon in our mouth and, you know, you know, tons of money.
1 (23m 44s):
So, you know, invariably, our parents would have been arguing when we were little around things or we can't go on that holiday. We can't, you know, can't afford it, can't buy that car. It's too expensive. You know, you can't have those shoes that you want, and you're there like staring at your mate trainers. And they're really cool and you want them, but they're too expensive. You can't have them. So throughout our lives, when we're kids, we've had all the scarcity, like just pounded into us. And, and unfortunately many adults like we have to spend, it takes years to kind of unpack that blueprint and start to give it a more positive blueprint. And you know, one of the ways to look at this as well as many, many sort of people in business have this very emotional attachment to outcomes in their business.
1 (24m 26s):
So they're very, very heavily focused on sales, for example. And somebody says, no, they, you know, all $2,500 for this, you know, this, this amazing program which John is doing, that's too expensive. And John, you know, you might, you could choose to take offense to that. You know, fear of rejection, that's, what's going on there. And, and the reality is like in business, like what's the worst that can happen. You know, no, actually isn't that bad. You might lose a bit of face. You may not make the money, but the world still spins around. And so a lot of the time people sell products too cheaply because it's like Pavlov's dog.
1 (25m 6s):
Every time they sell a product, a little bell goes off in their head. The reticular activating system kicks in and says, Oh, that's a nice feeling. I'll keep on selling cheap products because I sold them more often, not realizing the damage which it's doing to your business, for the reasons we talked about earlier on around discounting and things like that. And then if you sell products that are more expensive, you have to wait a little bit longer. You've got to be more patient. You're going to get more rejections because your conversion rate might be slightly lower, but you have to wait a little bit longer for the yeses. And I hate to say it, but, and it's in part because of what the internet has created over the last 30 years, this like this, this on demand world, where we get instant gratification.
1 (25m 46s):
For some reason, we expect that that is how business works and we've lost our ability to be patient. And actually the business owners who I think have the best, the most, or the best success in which we see externally, obviously are the ones who've developed this innate ability to be patient, to, to wait for the sale to the right prospects, come along at the right price at a price point that is economically going to stack up for their business and make them profit. And so what happens here is rather than being on the cycle where we're doing sell, deliver, sell, deliver, sell, deliver a cheaper price points. The moment you start charging more money, you have more time to deliver a better quality product which produces better results and outcomes and produces more money on the backend.
1 (26m 34s):
And the whole world. Imagine it's like a, imagine John's at the center of this universe. And if he's not pricing enough, you know, if he's not charging enough for his products, the S the, the sales cycle of doom is I call it. It's like going, sell, deliver, sell, deliver, sell, deliver. It's like, it's like a gravity field around John. But if you have the confidence just to step into your, you know, understand your worth and your value and slow that process down, it's like that gravity field just expands. And we charge a little bit more. We have more time to deliver a better quality products, get more money at the back end before we then have to focus on where our next client is coming from. You know, and I, I have, we actually kind of have a mantra, fearless business, which is slow down, create space and charge your worth.
1 (27m 20s):
I even had it printed on a coin, which I send to clients, which to remind them just to, like, if they find themselves on this frenetic cell cycle of doom, they're doing it wrong. And they need to just slow down,
0 (27m 31s):
Slow down, create space, charge what you are worth. If you're doing those three things by your nation, your life is getting better. So Robin, you shared a lot of awesomeness. This entire episode breakdown. The one key takeaway you really want to make sure a Fire Nation gets from everything that we talked about here today. Give us a place that we can go to find out more about you. Any call to action you may have, or a gift for Fire Nation. Then we'll say goodbye.
1 (27m 59s):
I think people have probably got the message by now, you know, be fearless with your pricing. Just be, be really brave. And if you're, if you're struggling to understand your worth and do go and speak to a coach, doesn't have to be me, but go and speak to a coach about how you can find creative ways to charge more for your products and package them up. I've got a great gift, actually for listeners, as well as my book, take your shot, which I'm happy for people to go and download a copy from fearless.biz/fire. If they're based in the UK, it will be a paperback copy for everybody else as a PDF available for that. And then that's the best way probably for people, for everyone to get in touch as well. If they want to follow this conversation on
0 (28m 37s):
Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with R dubs and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to your EOFire.com type at Robin ROBIN in the search bar. His show notes page will be there and it'll pop right up with everything we've talked about here today. Best show notes in the biz, timestamps links galore Robin. One more time. Give us that URL at Fire Nation can go to for
1 (29m 5s):
Absolutely it's fearless.biz/fire,
0 (2s):
Fire Nation. You know this, you are the average of those five people.
0 (29m 10s):
So keep hanging out with awesome people like myself and Robin and Robin. Thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Awesome. Thank you, John. Hey, Fire Nation today's value bomb. Content was brought to you by Robin and Fire Nation. I've created a treasure trove of free courses for you. I teach you how to podcast run a mastermind, create funnels that convert come up with your big idea and it's all free. All you need to do is visit EOFire.com/resources to start learning today. I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side.
2 (29m 47s):
The HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. Whether you're looking for marketing sales, service, or operational guidance, the HubSpot Podcast Network hosts have your back, listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at HubSpot.com/podcastnetwork. Looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase our profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than it would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today with clay Clark, a former small business administration entrepreneur of the year at ThriveTimeShow.com/fire ThriveTimeShow.com/fire.
Killer Resources!
1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!
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3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!